How to Plan a Story the Easy Way
by Pimpernel Princess
Summary: An affectionate send-up of the young-adult fantasy genre and the people who write it. I parody myself and my own writing. Please read and review!


**Author's Notes:** Notes and trivia at the bottom. Please review!

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How to Plan a Story the Easy Way:

Character Collaboration

"Thank you all for coming, now we can start," I said to the various people seated around the table. "First of all, I would like to thank you for agreeing to be my characters in the novel that I am writing."

I looked over at Celia, seated to my left. She was a pretty, but smart teenager in a plain green dress. I had my doubts, however, if she could engage the reader's attention effectively without becoming a Mary Sue. "I know I agreed to be your protagonist," she said quietly, "but what do I do? I read your plot synopsis, but I don't know what else I do besides run away because I don't want to get married. What else?"

"Let me see," I explained. "You despise the man you don't want to marry, fall in love with this other guy, move to a new place and mourn the other guy's death. Oh, and not to mention the prophesy—you really need to show a sense of confusion and angst, lots of angst, when you find out about it." I handed her a pile of papers.

"But—" Celia began.

"I'll get to that later," I interrupted her as I moved on to the handsome, blue eyed warrior seated next to her. He wore a sword on his belt, a helm, and leather jerkin. "Alright, Andrew, your job is to save Celia, be brave, fall in love with Celia, fight in the battle and then duel the guy Celia is supposed to marry, and become mortally wounded, but I don't know if you die or not. Remember to be brave and kind. You are also one of the three people included in the prophesy. You have a vague idea what it is about, but you just do what you think needs to be done."

"Ok, gotcha. What about the fighting?" he said eagerly.

"Basically," I replied, sliding a paper over to him, "you get to kill any evil thing that approaches. Have fun."

"I will…Sweet!" Andrew said, excited.

I looked at the next man down the line. He was older with rather large ears, but otherwise stately in his red and purple velvet robes. "You are Lord Avani, Celia's father. You like gold, and you are getting lots of it for marrying Celia off. You two were never really close. When the marriage offer comes from Sir Reginald of the first Baronet, you can hardly believe you eyes because you are only a minor Lord with hardly any connections."

"Lovely. Anything else?" Lord Avani said airily.

"No, not really." I turned to the next two men. The first man had rather large glasses, brown, tussled hair and looked as if he spent a good deal of his time indoors. Of course, he was reading a large, heavy tome which looked much older than he was.

The second man wore a red tunic edged in gold with yellow breeches and tall leather boots. I judged he had a rather cavalier attitude by the way he propped his feet against the table.

"Which one of you would like to be Andrew's eccentric but lovable sidekick?" I said to them.

"I will take that sidekick role as long as the alternative isn't the rich son of a wealthy landowner who is suave and debonair," the second man with the red tunic proclaimed.

"Actually, that _is_ the alternative," I said sheepishly.

"Zounds! I will be a prince among property owners. I am now Sir Reginald—the noblest of the nobility! My many dull days as a sidekick are now ended. Hurrah!"

"I think I got the role of Sir Reginald right, I just don't think that I'll tell him that he loses the girl," I said under my breath, shoving him a job description which he jammed into a pocket. I moved to the man who was reading the massive book. "Hey reading guy…"

The bespectacled man looked up from his book, half astonished, for he had been oblivious to all else. "Actually my proper title is that of a bibliophile."

"Sorry, but uh…you get to be Markus, Andrew's sidekick. Unless you would like to be a box of packing peanuts, I mean."

"What is it that you mean by packing peanuts? Am I to be cut up and put into boxes to keep their contents from shifting during shipping?" The man said, incredulous.

"No," I sighed, hating to explain myself, "it's a writer's joke. Packing peanuts are just filler material between the important scenes in a story."

"Oh," Markus said, hating to have something be explained to him. "I will be Andrew's sidekick then, on one condition…In this role, do I get to read?"

"Only if you want to," I said with an encouraging grin.

"Alleluia! I would fancy being a sidekick then. I'll certainly take it." I gave him a set of papers which he started scanning into his palm-pilot.

"Markus, you know you can't have that kind of technology in this book, don't you?"

"What? My palm pilot? I cannot live without it!"

"Here, I'll find you a beautiful maiden in the story in exchange for you living without your palm pilot." I pleaded.

"Give her intelligence. I can't _stand_ stupid people," Markus groaned.

"Deal," I said slamming my hand down on the table like an auctioneer. I looked at Sir Reginald and Markus. "Which one of you wants to be the third person in the prophesy?"

"Really, I would rather know what the prophesy is about and explain it to people," Markus said. "I do so much better in roles like that…"

"Alright, Sir Reginald, you are the third person in the prophesy."

"Can I go and get a latte? I'm suffering from caffeine withdrawal," Markus yawned.

"Oh, I would love to go out and procure a cappuccino," Lord Avani said. "On the way to Starbucks, we can talk about political structure in the author's world versus the economics infrastructure of this world."

"Sounds excellent!" Markus said, following him out the door.

"Goodbye, nice to—" I called lamely after them. It was only Celia, Andrew, Reginald, and I left. "About this prophesy, we really need to decide who does what. I'll read it to you. There should be a copy of it in each of the packets I gave you. Feel free to read along.

"_Three will be born_

_Given unto you_

_How will you know, you ask?_

_On the right hand look for a square of blue._

_Two of the three will wed _

_And the other_

_Shall die a hero's death _

_A betrayal there will be_

_Before the world is changed by three._

"Alright, how's that?" I finished.

"Wonderful. I love the gloomy little touch at the end." Celia said dryly. Maybe she could manage to become an interesting heroine after all.

"Ignore the first paragraph," I said, "who wants to die as a hero?"

"Don't look at me—I'm your protagonist," Celia said hastily.

"I have a minor problem with the dying part. I honestly could be a brilliant hero!" Sir Reginald broke in. He stood, posing ridiculously. "I'm statue material!"

"Fine, I'll do it," Andrew said rolling his eyes at Reginald.

"Great. Celia, who do you want to marry?"

"Andrew. Definitely Andrew," she said after recovering from silent giggles at Reginald's ridiculousness and probably felt relieved because she had an alternative to marrying someone so foppish.

"'_A betrayal there will be.'_ There will be several betrayals—is that all right with all of you?" I asked them.

"Fine, why not," said Andrew.

"Um, Ok," Celia said.

"If I have wealth amassed, I am contented," said Sir Reginald.

"Great," I said, rejoicing, "Meeting adjourned!"

My characters and I left the room and we all went our separate ways. Before we all left, however, I did see Andrew shove a little slip of paper to Celia. That paper probably had his phone number on it…Maybe this could work out after all…

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(Whoa, I just figured out how to make these cool lines that I see on everyone else's fics. Neato!)

**Author's Note:** Wasn't this fun? This story is pretty much ancient and based off of the first long fantasy story that I ever tried to write. Celia's equivalent character was pretty much a Sue and the only characters that actually turned out decently were (maybe) Reginald and Markus. Oh well, it was a good experience for me. If you read all of the way to this ramble, thank you. Please **review** and check out my other stories, especially _Wolf-Maiden_, because I promise that the writing is much, much better on that one!


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